Prayer with flava

Last night I went over to Ben and Hilary’s for the blessing of their little boy, Ethan. That baby isn’t even a month old and already he is sooooo long. He is going to be one tall kid with shocking blonde hair. I love to nuzzle his little head; it’s so soft and smells like pure happiness.

Caden missed the blessing part due to his soccer practice that he had to be at, seeing as how we’ve been traveling around willy nilly for a little while. When I picked him up to take him back to Ben’s house, he asked, “Mom, is the blessing part all done?”

I smiled and countered, “Why? Is it too boring for you to sit through or something?”

Caden smiled back and nodded. After a brief pause, he turned to me and said, “You know, prayers would be more interesting if they could just rap. Like (arms cross his chest) ‘I bless this baby, yo diggity yo, in the name of God…’”

Oh this kid! I laughed all night long.

A change of pace

Okay, so ignore my little “oh, my hard life” post below except for the thank you part. That actually helped me a ton to just remember how many people make me happy (and there are so many more I could list) for one reason or another.

I just had to share a little story that still makes me laugh out loud as because it involves my funny little boy and the fact that his silly mother doesn’t know how to quite exactly, um, play the guy role sometimes?

Caden is a sports kid – not just a soccer kid, a baseball kid, a football kid, or what have you. He is “Mom-can-I-play-every-sport-in-the-world” type of kid. And with each of these sports comes a unique set of sports equipment. I played soccer so I’m aware of what you need there: cleats, shinguards, uniform. Simple stuff. With baseball, I pretty much knew what he needed: cleats, mitt, bat, batting gloves, bag. Football? This was an entirely new sport to me. What was with all this padding? Where does it go in these little practice pants? Shoulder pads? Mouth guard? Oh, and the most infamous part – the cup.

Yessss, that piece that I really never thought about. And really have no idea whatsoever what to buy, what comes with it, and how it all works (okay, I know the general purpose of a cup – but would you want your mom helping you out with this?).

I signed Caden up for the U of U football camp while I was out gallavanting across Italy and Greece. Before I left, I took him to get some practice pants and a new mouth guard at Sports Authority because they were having a big pre-football season sale. While wandering along the aisle, guess what we came across? Cups!

“Mom, I need to get a cup for football practice. I really, really need one,” Caden begs.

“Do you even know what it’s for?” I asked.

Caden rolls his eyes at me. “Mo-om, of course I do. It’s to protect my…”

“All right, all right,” I interrupted, “I don’t need anymore info.”

I took a look at the various cup offerings and realized I really had no idea what I was looking at. There were probably 12 different types with different styles and sizes and I felt somewhat ridiculous picking up cups and trying to determine what I should buy. I found one that just said Youth but there was no particular sizing. And it looked big. I looked at Caden. Small. Looked back at the cup. Big. Ummm…

“Well, we’ll just get this one and if it’s not right, I’ll just have Ben come get you the right one,” I said as I handed Caden my best guess of a cup. He held it eagerly, turning the packaging around, then turned to me and asked, “So, Mom, how do I put this on?”

Oh my gosh…

“Ask Ben. Or Grandpa.”

We got in line to buy our items, right behind a guy with his little boy purchasing baseball equipment.

“Did Grandpa wear a cup when he played football?”  (These questions, these questions!) I noticed the guy in front of me slightly turn in response to overhearing the question.

“I’m sure he did.”

Caden sat there for a couple of seconds, pondering this little gem of information.

“Did you ever see his cup?”

That did it. The guy in front of me just starts chuckling, his shoulders heaving up and down. I was done with the questioning having been completely taken off my mom game by things waaaaay out of my realm of knowledge – and comfort.

“Caden, shhh! NO! I did NOT see his cup…oh my gosh, no more questions!”

The guy who checked me out clearly enjoyed my nervous aura, smiling from ear to ear as he slowly scanned the cup and held it up asking, “Is this for you, buddy?”

Holy cow, could we just put the thing in the bag already?!

After the whole “experience”, it made me realize that my dad was probably very grateful for my mom being the responsible party in purchasing training bras for all of his daughters. But who knows – my dad doesn’t get embarrassed very easily. And there was that one Christmas I found a bra in my stocking with my dad holding the video camera waiting for my reaction…

But that’s another story for another time.

Survival of the witless

I feel as if I have lost my wit. It is gone. Poof! Vanished like the Cheeto dust caked on my son’s fingers. Oh wait, Cheeto dust doesn’t vanish. In fact, it stains. But I guess the metaphor still semi-fits; in either case of being blown in the wind or caked on forever, there’s something that just makes you uncomfortable and sad.

I guess I could say that my “witlessness” really stems from a lack of understanding on so many parts of my life. I don’t understand why certain things seem to pan out for others and not for me. But that’s typical because everyone wonders that, right? Don’t you ever look at someone and think, ‘Why do they seem to have it so easy and I have to struggle all the time?’ I can say that I honestly thought I would never be single as long as I have been. I’ve watched many people come and go through marriage, divorce, and re-marriage with hardly a moment for breath in between. And I’m happy it’s worked out for them. But then I look at my situation and can’t help but think, “Really? Still???”

Sigh…don’t mind me, I am just being down on a Monday.

As of late, I am really struggling with the “survival” aspect of life. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to mention the people that make me happy, even if I don’t talk to you regularly, it’s nice to know you are there. You might make me happy because you are my wonderful sister (all four of you – in-law included) that I love and adore and appreciate beyond words. You might make me happy because you are a friend I haven’t talked to in awhile, but I love to read your blog and catch up on the amazing things you do with your life. You might make me happy because you inspire me to use my creativity more, to be better, to think outside of my box. You might be family once considered “former” but still really are my family and therefore people that I love. You might be people once considered “potential” family and because of that I love you still. You might be that crazy person at work who always makes me laugh (especially today). You might be a mom who knows that sometimes your daughter just needs a hug with arms wrapped around her to cry in. You just might be surprised that you are on my list.

◊ Katie ◊ Caden ◊ Mom ◊ Emmy ◊ Amy G ◊ Michelle L ◊ Susan ◊ Emily P ◊ Ben ◊ Logan ◊ Annie ◊ Allison ◊ Whitney ◊ Mamo & Poppa ◊ Natalie ◊ Tani ◊ April ◊ Leslie ◊ Ryan W ◊ Dave ◊ Chelsea ◊ Dad ◊ Stacey ◊ Emily H ◊ Lisa ◊ Matt ◊ Ryan C ◊ Hilary ◊ Rebecca ◊ Ella ◊ Ethan ◊ Samantha ◊ Amy N ◊ Lesley S ◊ Miranda ◊ Alan ◊ Karen ◊ Scott ◊ Amy B ◊ Trina ◊ Andrew ◊ Elise ◊ Lara ◊ Keith ◊  Ed ◊ Renate ◊ Melanie ◊ Conrad ◊ Michelle K ◊ Carol ◊ Jeremy ◊ Mike ◊ Evan ◊ George ◊ Bryce ◊ Liz B ◊ Jordan ◊ Nicole ◊ Stephanie ◊ Amy W ◊ Alyssa ◊ Paula ◊ Steve ◊ Ann ◊ Tiffany ◊ Ilene ◊ Natalie B ◊ Deb ◊ Young ◊ Judy ◊ Rick ◊ Chad ◊ Kent ◊ Erika ◊ Hillary ◊ Natalie R ◊ Eric ◊ Scott T ◊ Michael ◊ TG ◊

Thank you…for just you.

La Spezia – a glimpse

La Spezia, Italy

I’ll be coming back to my Italy/Greece travels from time to time. The story leading up to this one is below.

After circling for hours in Pisa, Tani and I made it to our hotel in La Spezia sometime around 2 a.m. in the morning.

“I am going to be so mad if those guys aren’t awake and worried about us!” Tani said as we climbed the stairs to the room. “Those guys” were Chelsea (with baby Jane), Emmy, and her friend, Robert. We figured that they were probably in a state of panic because we were supposed to be back hours ago. Um, not so much.

We knocked on the door and eventually Robert opened it up, sleepy and almost falling over, and groggily asked, “Are you guys okay? We wondered what happened to you…until we all fell asleep.” Ah well, so much for high concern.

In the morning, I had a quick glimpse of La Spezia before we headed out to start hiking the Cinque Terre. I love that everywhere you go in Italy, there are rows and rows of bikes and motorcycles.

Flickr - Tyson Williams

The 45th parallel

I crossed the 45th parallel yesterday as I headed into Oregon for the week. I came up to spend some time with my sister, Katie, and her little family because hey, I could and I can. Well, and I also came up to take a look around. If a move is in my future, Oregon is where it’s at.

I’m actually sitting by some of my co-workers at the Jones Farm campus in Hillsboro right this very second. It’s strange to actually walk in a building and see scads of people milling around — and I don’t know their names right off the bat. It’s baffling to actually have food on site —and with so many choices! I went immediately to the PC guys to have my laptop fixed because at our Utah site, they give you an Etch-a-Sketch or Speak-n-Spell as a loaner  if yours breaks and you have to ship it off.

It’s weird. I’m actually at a fully functioning, totally filled to capacity site. It reminds me that I do work for a large multi-national company that isn’t going out of business. It’s just leaving the business of Utah behind.

The 45th parallel is an appropriate symbol for what I seem to be going through right now. It’s the line halfway between the equator and the North Pole. And I am halfway between two monumental decisions. There’s my Utah life potential and my Oregon life potential running in parallel to each other, both offering great opportunities. But it seems that no intersection point exists. It’s one or the other. Sigh…I’d like to have both for differing reasons.

But for now this week brings lots of fun and good times with the Demcaks. Farmers markets, Powells books. Burgerville, Papa Haydn’s, Lincoln City, outlet shopping, coastal driving and so much more. And lucky me, fantastic weather all week long!

The King of Pop popped and Farrah dropped

Who would’ve thought these two would go out on the same day? And I was just listening to “Rock With You” this afternoon…

Paris-Pisa-Panini

Okay, so I am waaaay slow in posting anything incredibly specific about my trip other than my quick synopsis below. But it’s mainly because I’m having a devil of a time getting my images transferred from my Canon 40D to my laptop. Issues. Sheesh. All these beautiful pictures and it keeps erroring out. So, I did take my little Nikon point-and-shoot but took a small handful of pictures with that camera as compared to my lovely other cam. I’ll use what pics I can from there but will hopefully at some point (fingers crossed) be able to share the more photo-wonderful shots.

This is me landing in Paris – almost 14 years after I went there for a study abroad program:

Sigh…entirely too short of a visit if you ask me. I literally had time to get off the plane, walk to a comletely different terminal, and board the plane there to Athens. In all, I spent about 87 minutes in Paris. Dang it.

After getting into Athens, I had to pick up my bags and change carriers to go to Pisa where Tani (my ex-mom-in-law) was going to be picking me up. Unfortunately, no direct flights go from Athens to Pisa so I went to Rome for a short time and then on to Pisa. At the Rome airport, I had quite the stereotypical Italian moment.

I was sitting near my gate, people watching (because how fun is that to do when you are in a foreign country?), sniffing pasta-laced air, enjoying the fashion of Italian men, and overhead the sound system starts to play Offenbach. You know, that song from Life is Beautiful? Seriously, I couldn’t stop giggling because it seemed all so, so…Italian. When I boarded my little plane to hop over to Pisa, the flight attendants were these drop dead gorgeous Italian women who spoke like, EIGHT languages. And the Japanese guy across from me was texting on his phone and I know he must of thought I was staring at him because I found it fascinating to watch his fingers move and select the characters/symbols for what he was trying to say (ever seen somebody text in symbols? weird…but so cool). And because I am a total dork, I wanted to jump up from my seat at one point and shout, “Ah, principessa!” I was having another Life is Beautiful moment.

Once in Pisa, I met up with Tani to head to La Spezia where we were staying. It was about 10:30 p.m. when I arrived in Pisa so we thought we would get there, oh, maybe around midnight. Famous last thoughts.

I couldn’t leave Pisa without seeing the Leaning Tower Of so went cruised on over for a couple of quick shots in the night. Little note to future travelers: the tower is not so very well lit up at night and is quite difficult to take a shot of. Thus my results below (the best of about 30 attempts we tried):

After my photo session with the tower, Tani took me to get something to eat because 24 hours of nothing but plane food is not exactly warming to the stomach. I wanted something not served in a tiny, compartmentalized, plastic tray.

A little outdoor cafe was open right by the tower so I hopped inside to find several different choices of panini sandwiches to choose from. Ooooooh, what to choose, what to choose! Can’t remember what I chose, but it was good and tasty and a perfect first Italian food.

The plan after picking up the panini? Head out to the autostrada to go to La Spezia. The plan roughly 2 hours later? Head out to the autostrada to go to La Spezia. Pisa was the city we could not leave – even though we were trying like crazy!

Here’s what happened: Tani input the address to the hotel in the GPS she brought along. The GPS kept sending us on a route to a closed freeway entrance. Like, a hundred times it sent us back to that route. We tried every which way imaginable to get OUT OF PISA and it would inexplicably send us in circles.  We saw the same roads 50 times over, saw a few “ladies of the night” showing off their wares to get us to stop, went down dead end after dead end. We were in the Black Hole of Pisa.

I couldn’t stop laughing and at one point turned to Tani and said, “I think I’ve seen enough of Pisa now; can we head out of the city, please?”

Mercifully, we finally found a way to escape and get on the autostrada. Of course, now we were out of gas…

A Tale to Tell

I’m sitting in the “eating” area at my hotel in Santorini, Greece right at this moment, listening to a group of British chaps wile away the hours while they throw back drink after drink. They are killing me with their conversation. It reminds me of my dad’s family friends from his mission time in England and suddenly I am feeling nostalgic.

“I’m noht sayin’ it’s yohr faul…but I’hm absolutely chockered…I’m staggering…red wine, whyyyte wine, oof!”

Seriously, they are killing me.

In about six hours, I am leaving this beautiful little island off the coast of Greece and heading back home after eight days of absolute joy aaaaaaaand absolute terror. Yes, joy and terror. Two feelings and reactions that go hand in hand, don’t you think? I will be posting more about my wonderful travels when I get a moment to download my 586,000 pictures I’ve taken. How to choose what to post?!

But a quick synopsis of what fun I’ve had (with a promise of more details to follow):

• Tuesday, leave for Italy/Greece: straight to Paris from SLC, then to Athens, then to Rome, then to Pisa
• Get picked up at 10:20 p.m. Wed night by Tani (my ex-mom-in-law); head to Leaning Tower of Pisa, proceed to get lost in the Black Hole of Pisa for almost 2 hours; arrive in La Spezia at 2 a.m. in the morning
• Thursday, hike the Cinque Terre with Tani (and Emmy and Chelsea on a couple of parts); gelato – twice
• Friday, spend day in Florence and die from happiness (thankfully, in Italy so everyone is religious and they raise me from the dead); see The David, browse the Uffizi, troll the Ponte Vecchio, buy beautiful journals
• Saturday, visit Italian flea market near Genova, head to Lake Como for an hour (MUCH too short – must go back next year just to Como); fly out of Milan to Athens
• Sunday, day in Athens spent viewing the Acropolis, Parthenon, Hadrian’s Arch, the Agorra, the Plaka, and buying fake designer bags i.e. Chanel clutch, Burberry laptop tote, and amazing coconut rolls
• Monday, fly out veeeeeeery early to Santorini, check into Atalos Villas (stay here – Yannis is the BEST HOST EVER!), rent scooters, head up steep mountain, crash, fainting, bleeding, French speaking, hospital, stitches, tetanus shot, whew!
• Tuesday, hobbling around elicits sympathy from everyone – free drinks (meaning water or Fanta) wherever I go! Oia is incredible
• Wednesday, still hobbling, visit back to hospital to change dressing on knee, pass out again, pain, but beauty supercedes it in this place
• Thursday…leave to go home…dang it

Until my pictures are flooding my laptop (got to get rid of a lot of stuff to be able to download it all), this is what I’ve enjoyed and am sad to say goodbye to:

Can I have the letter ‘V’ please, Pat?

‘V’ as in vacation. ‘V’ as in very, very far away for 9 days. ‘V’ as in a variety of yummy foods I will be tasting. ‘V’ as in Venetian glass or (Italian/Greek) vistas. “V” as in vaguely able to concentrate on anything at work because I am daydreaming about leaving. 

For your weekend enjoyment, you may want to check out some new tunes that I am digging right now:

• Mat Kearney - Everyone I Know (this is my FAVORITE song right now – love, love, love it!) 
• Dave Matthews Band - You and Me (brand new on iTunes)
• Safetysuit - Stay

I’m hoping that authentic gelato might help me find a bit of clarity, too. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Golden wings

Did I ever mention that I decided to get myself one of these dainty necklaces? I picked up angel wings:

I don’t think I’ve taken it off for months now. It’s become me.